Thanks to a good friend, Al Braidwood, I am offering the following remarks of my great-great uncle, who knew of what he spoke. We are as close as we have ever been in this country to having an authoritarian demagogue with a narcissistic personality disorder as our president. We must gather a coherent and effective party and movement to carry forward the post-inauguration marches, with far more attention to lies told and ignorance unveiled. Trump will be no push-over, and he can do a great deal of damage. But if we can get party and movement together, we can do much to moderate and stop his initiatives.
As Theodore Roosevelt said:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)